preview

no, not books this time (it's getting closer to christmas, but not that close!)... our group, the Connacht Textile Crafters, went on a trip last tuesday - guess where:

we saw this: 



 ...and just around the corner there was this:

of course we saw other things, too:) I did take some more telling pictures, but I'll show those later.

 

as much as I love eating - when I do so in a bistro or restaurant, I never remember to take photos (too greedy, I suppose:). which I should have on tuesday, because we had some lovely food. all I can show you is a photo of something we had a few days ago:

hm, blackberry crumble. some of our fruit trees look empty - and not because I picked everything! strawberries were pretty good, but raspberries are next to non-existant (only the yellow variety has produced some, but not a lot). but blackberries? I don't think I've had a year that good since I came! they are big, ripe and very tasty - or at least they have been until yesterday. we had a lot of rain last night and strong gales - so maybe the overripe ones have dropped already. I spent my evening walking up our road and picking - 4.5 kg of blackberries. a small amount will go into a blackberry almond pie today, but most of them will end up in my steam juicer later. I am not terribly fond of blackberry jam, because I don't like the seeds so much. but I do like blackberry jelly, yum! I only make a small amount immediately and finish the rest from juice bit by bit. which of course means that we could still use it in another way - e.g. hot blackberry juice with a bit of lemon, a drop of rum and hot water - like a "grog", but fruity! or blended with brandy, very tasty (with a bit of brown sugar). if the wind calms down a bit I might go for another browse, but we'll see..... most of the time over the year I curse the overgrown road - but at this time I love it, because I only have to step out the front door to go picking:)

 

of course I've done other things - textile stuff. I had planned to use a bit of my sockwool remnants for hexipuffs. but a friend of mine steadfastly refuses to learn knitting in the round (she claims she can't do it...) and when I found the same project in crochet in ravelry I thought I'd give it a try.

it's simple, just sc (or dc in uk) in the round. a few increases, later a few decreases, that's it. but to be honest - I'd rather do it in knitting:) she can have the pattern!            

and yes, I have done quite a lot of knitting and spinning, too. some of it was the dyed yarns and fibres from my last entries. I also started a moebius on the bus trip - but decided I don't like it too much, so I ripped it yesterday morning - to start a different pattern with the same yarn. and I brought something from our trip - see next entry:)

 

in the garden I've been collecting seeds. nero di toscana kale, some dahlia sp. and quite a lot of seeds from the purple lupin I bought in june. this plant was a brilliant buy - 4 euros for a big plant that has been producing gorgeous flower stalks non-stop from the day I bought it! plus lots of seeds on the side... I wanted to try dyeing with lupins, and hope that the strong purple will yield colour as well. but for this I have to grow a few more than just my parent plant! if anybody wants lupin seeds - beep (or my garden will grow nothing else next year:).

I do find the pods quite interesting (and wish I had a better camera for this!)

each seed had a "room" of its own plus a nice cozy lining to keep it safe. and when the pod is ripe it magically splits open and shakes its inhabitants out of their cozy apartments.... but I won't leave it to chance, I collected all the seed pods so far, and will only leave the last stalk to try self-seeding, too.

 and now I am off to dig out the steamer - the blackberries are so juicy that I can't leave them for more than a few hours before using them!